Questioning Faith

I am writing in response to a question posed by Chris, a swordsman (foilist) of keen renown in NAF and NFC. He asked of himself why he fences and, whilst I cannot answer that at a personal level for him, I can attempt to do so for myself.

First of all, it is a question that I have never posed before, but having seen it written down I can barely wonder why it has taken so long to crop up. At least I feel wise enough now to postulate towards an answer instead of simply going "Er..."

I started fencing in the Winter of 2001, having spent a summer holiday not sure what to do with myself sports-wise./neither a keen footballer or a competent rugby/hockey/cricket player, I was lost for things to do. Fencing, as proposed to me by my mum as a 'fun thing to do', seemed to be something kooky and different (and I must admit the whole 'swash-buckling cavalier' thing did flash in my mind briefly...). And so I went, completely lost as these funny foot positions and oddball names flew at me. Being persistent and ever-attendant, I stuck with it. Sometimes I think it stuck with me, but that is another story.

Shortly after I was hauled up to a club on saturdays, where the standards were awe-inspiring (at the time) and I remember being put into the D pool, with a budding young Abby among others. It was Dave (although he may not remember it) who claimed that she fenced 'like a terminator'. That much was true. I, however, fenced with a degree of timidity and a lack of confidence, landing somewhere in the middle and so not moving groups that fortnight. This eye-opening day proved that there was great room for improvement, although I was of the age where improvenment does not come easily and mistakes are there to be remade, not to be learned from.

This tale, in stark contrast to the last one, is based upon the fierce spiral of the learning curve, rather than that sense of achievement from thinking you have reached the top of it (at least momentarily). And it answers the question in three ways:

1: It answers the question because it outlines the thought process of why I started fencing.

2: It outlines a deeper level of why I didn't immediately stop fencing.

3: It outlines that, when you are good (relatively speaking, of course) at something, it will find you more readily and you will discover yourself through the things you do, rather than the things you think.

So perhaps raising a question so simple and yet so powerful, and in doing so effectively reconstructing your own faith in yourself and your sport, you open up such a depth of thought that you end up losing control of your own streams of consciousness. Given that losing that puts you back to square one every time, perhaps it is never meant to be known why things happen, but to revel in the fact that they have...